Rebecca and her father move to the dilapidated cliff-top village of Winterfold. Lonely Rebecca is befriended by morbid and manipulative Ferelith, and the two begin an escalating series of dares. Sedgwick skillfully weaves Ferelith's confessional first-person narrative with Rebecca's reserved, third-person perspective--and the chilling journal entries of a long-ago minister. The atmospheric story presents thoughtful (if disturbing) explorations of betrayal and redemption.

Gr 9 Up-Three lives intersect in this disquieting but skillfully written tale of the human desire to know what awaits us after death. Beautiful and bitter Rebecca has come to the crumbling seaside village of Winterfold with her police-officer father to escape the consequences of a deadly choice he made. She meets Ferelith, a peculiar local girl who prefers "things that are frightening," and who convinces Rebecca to join her in rebellious and perilous activities. Ferelith shares a troubling story of dark doings in the history of Winterfold, which leads to the third part of this tale, which is told through excerpts from the diary of a priest, written in 1798, about a devilish scientific experiment. The three characters around whom the narrative revolves are well realized and realistically flawed, and the story is hugely compelling. The plot moves forward with Sedgwick dangling juicy details in front of readers, revealing just enough information to keep them guessing, never allowing everything to be exposed at once. As all the puzzle pieces fall into place, the peril for the girls rises to a terrifying crescendo, and teens will have no choice but to continue until the last page is turned.— Heather M. Campbell, formerly at Philip S. Miller Library, Castle Rock, CO

Using three wildly different voices and two time periods separated by more than 200 years, Sedgwick's horror offering is pretty ambitious for its modest page count. The good news: he pulls it off. Sixteen-year-old Rebecca and her policeman father have just moved from London to the seaside town of Winterfold to escape the controversy surrounding his failure to save a girl's life. There Rebecca meets Ferelith, a philosophic goth whose tricky mannerisms keep her status constantly in question she friend or foe? While the two play increasingly dark "games," Sedgwick cuts back to 1798, when the town priest teamed up with a visionary doctor to try to learn the secrets of the afterlife. These sections, written as the priest's journal in convincing period tongue, are masterful in their ominous vagueness ("But, oh! The blood! The blood!"). The chapters from Ferelith's point of view well as her character el far less assured. Still, Sedgwick dovetails the plot splendidly. This book is one thing very few YA novels are: genuinely scary.

Two girls are brought together more from ennui than anything else in this riveting tale that brings the murderous history of a disintegrating coastal town into the present. Rebecca moves to Winterfold with her disgraced father, a policeman accused—but not convicted—of failure to do his duty, which resulted in a death. Her boyfriend quickly moves on, and, left to her own resources, she discovers Ferelith, a girl close in age, but miles away in capacity for dangerous stunts. Neither girl likes the other much, but there's little else to distract them. Judiciously interspersed are extracts from the 1798 diary of a parson who has met a French newcomer and discovers that they are both fascinated to know what science can tell them of the afterlife. As the grisly experiments of the past are gradually revealed, so do the girls embark on increasingly dangerous games of daring, uneasily testing their trust and knowledge of each other. While at any moment they could walk away from the nightmare that only readers know is unfolding, these casual choices nonetheless lead them onward. The sea is eroding the coast, and the half-demolished buildings perched on cliff tops add a physical component to the unease. Masterfully plotted to keep the suspense ratcheting ever higher. Wickedly macabre and absolutely terrifying. (Horror. 14 & up)

Two girls are brought together more from ennui than anything else in this riveting tale that brings the murderous history of a disintegrating coastal town into the present. Rebecca moves to Winterfold with her disgraced father, a policeman accused—but not convicted—of failure to do his duty, which resulted in a death. Her boyfriend quickly moves on, and, left to her own resources, she discovers Ferelith, a girl close in age, but miles away in capacity for dangerous stunts. Neither girl likes the other much, but there's little else to distract them. Judiciously interspersed are extracts from the 1798 diary of a parson who has met a French newcomer and discovers that they are both fascinated to know what science can tell them of the afterlife. As the grisly experiments of the past are gradually revealed, so do the girls embark on increasingly dangerous games of daring, uneasily testing their trust and knowledge of each other. While at any moment they could walk away from the nightmare that only readers know is unfolding, these casual choices nonetheless lead them onward. The sea is eroding the coast, and the half-demolished buildings perched on cliff tops add a physical component to the unease. Masterfully plotted to keep the suspense ratcheting ever higher. Wickedly macabre and absolutely terrifying. (Horror. 14 & up)